Hello, you're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Prahana Hyder.

And today we're going back to the 1960s and the story of a young woman who was among

the first from what became known as the United Arab Emirates to graduate from high school.

She went on to become the first teacher there and at a time when it was extremely rare

for women to even go to school.

The country was then a collection of Emirates under British protection.

The great Arabian subcontinent is bounded on the north by the Persian or Arab Gulf.

On its southern shore, there are a series of seven small Emirates.

They were separately bound by treaty with Britain in 1853.

They were known as the trucial states.

The trucial states were run by shakes.

Their shake-doms were acutely traditional societies.

They were politically and economically underdeveloped and had been a trading hub for centuries.

This BBC archive from the early 1970s explains.

The Portuguese came to this coast in the 16th century.

Trade passed from Persia and the old India along this coast and sometimes by Caliban over its desert.

The British took control from India.

Regulated the seas for their safety and convenience, left the shakes to their own ways.

In the 1950s and 60s amongst the most developed of the trucial states was Charger.

It was the only one to have an airport because a small number of British military were based there.

Oil hadn't been found in the neighbouring state of Dubai, so there was little construction

...